by Max Barry

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NationStates IPO: Share Offer

by Max Barry
Sat, 31 Mar 2012

Since NationStates successfully achieved its primary financial goal of not sending me broke, it's time for the next step: an IPO! All the big gaming companies are doing it.

But unlike them, we're not just interested in making out like bandits while crapping all over our playerbase. No, our IPO is different: we're giving stock to you, the players!

For a limited time only, you can claim 1 share in NationStates Corporation Pty Ltd for every million citizens in your nation. Also, as kind of a last-minute thing, you can trade shares with other nations.

I have, of course, assigned myself a sufficient number of shares to ensure that I remain the largest shareholder. Obviously, we can't have the lunatics running the asylyum. That would be a disaster.

The NationStates IPO

Update: Two hours in and I'm close to losing my majority holding. This isn't going well.

Update 2: Well, it happened. I no longer own a majority of the company. Luckily, though, I'm still the largest individual shareholder, and there is no plausible way anyone could overtake me.

Update 3: There's plenty of trading going on in the new IPO forum. (Note: Please ignore any threads about a revolution.)

Update 4: So it seems that some people think it's possible to overtake me as the #1 shareholder. Ha! Well I'm not worried! That would take, what, some kind of massive pooling of shares on a ludicrous scale. People trusting each other and working toward a common goal? On NationStates? Hahahaha!

Update 5: Ohhhh, now it's got a warm and fuzzy name. "The NationStates Community." How completely heart-warming. You're never going to make it, don't you realize? You only have twelve million shares with less than seven hours left! You're throwing away shares for nothing!

Update 6: Okay. Okay. Let's just take a breath. I may have been a little hasty. It's possible you could make it. But how—by giving absolute power to one nation? Is that what you want? Because you know what that smells like? Tyranny! How much do we know about this "The NationStates Community," anyway? Do we really want to take orders from a College State?

Update 7: That's it. Hoard your shares. Hoooooaaaaarrrrd them.

Update 8: And so I watched as "The NationStates Community" crept closer toward its goal of 25,000,000 shares, ever-more slowly, until it became obvious that it was destined to fall just short. I felt relief... and something else. An emotion strange and unfamiliar. Was I perhaps... moved? These disparate nations that had come together in shared puropose, discarding personal glory in order to shift the world together: had that impressed me? Did I find them... admirable?

Clarity filled me. Yes, many of those nations that donated to the cause had done so to oppose me, while many of those who held back were my greatest supporters. But this wasn't about me. Not any more. This was about NationStates.

So I have chosen to trade my own 25,000,000 shares to The NationStates Community. It is a privilege and an honor to be a part of this place. Thank you.

P.S. Most fun April Fools Day ever.